by Don D'Ammassa

excerpt from Panverse Three


Pennington contemplated the nature of self sacrifice as she watched several male sandrunners feverishly biting off their own legs in their haste to be the first to enter the queen. Her swollen body was so full of unfertilized eggs that she looked more like a rough textured balloon than a living creature, and although her mass was so low that Pennington could easily have picked her up and pitched her further out into the desert, she could potentially give birth to several thousand offspring, most of whom would enjoy a lifespan limited to a few hours. Her own limbs had atrophied and even the beetle-like head had receded until it was only the largest irregularity on her blotchy, scaly exterior. The entrance to her sex was prominently displayed, but the narrow opening could just accommodate a single male, and even then only after the lucky suitor had severed his own limbs and squirmed inside, where he would slowly inseminate the surrounding eggs while his own body was equally slowly digested by his mate.

The other males, bereft of their limbs, would die more quickly, of course.

She turned away when she heard the door open behind her. It was McNabb, who always slept late and then was impatient to be on the move. As usual the xeno-anthropologist was dressed like something straight out of a holo from old Earth, complete with a wide brimmed, heat resistant hat and a state of the art, bio-responsive bodysuit that was designed to monitor its wearer’s vital signs and make minute environmental adjustments as appropriate. Pennington didn’t trust machines that thought they were smarter than she was, even the ones that demonstrably were. Besides, unaugmented clothing rarely malfunctioned. One of her clients had almost been roasted by his own biosuit when the sensors malfunctioned and tried to compensate for subpolar cold in the middle of a heat wave.

“Another one, huh?” McNabb nodded toward the sandrunner queen. “Why do you find those damned things so fascinating?”

“It’s mating season,” said Pennington, ignoring the second question. “They’ve been rolling their queens over the sand for months and they’re anxious for their reward. It’s the only pleasure they’ll ever experience.”

“But only one of them gets that honor, if you call being slowly eaten alive rewarding.”

Pennington shrugged. They’d been together long enough now that she was hypersensitive to her client’s prejudices. For a self proclaimed seeker after truth, McNabb seemed convinced that he already knew what it was. “It must be worth it or they wouldn’t do it.”

“So if they all bite their own legs off, how do the survivors bury the old lady in the sand when the wedding is over with?”

“The survivors don’t.” Pennington turned away from the sandrunners, picked up her pack and slung it over one arm. “Only the strongest of the males get to compete for her favors. The rest will be along after they finish foraging for the day. They’ll cover her over except for the breathing sacs, then take turns standing guard for the next season. When they’re ready a new generation will come churning up out of the sand, ravenous, and their first meal will be their dear old uncles, all of them. Then the females fight to the death, the last one alive is promoted to queen, and the cycle starts all over again.”

“Sounds more like a machine than a living creature.” McNabb already wore his pack, and he followed Pennington to the crawler.

She couldn’t resist the temptation to poke at him one more time. “They’re a lot like us when you stop to think about it. Millions of humans have died in service to their nation or the race at large, or at least that’s how they rationalized their sacrifice at the time. Why does it have to have a point? Why can’t it just be the way things are? “

McNabb didn’t answer. He refused to be drawn into an intellectual debate with someone who lacked the proper credentials, both academic and gender specific. He was an anachronism, which explained his career long preference for field work in remote locations like this one. Pennington also did a background check on her clients and she knew that his career had proceeded by fits and starts. He would light some place—a university or a research group, quickly alienate everyone in sight, and then his contract wouldn’t be renewed or he’d be quietly asked to leave on some pretext or another. His published papers were frequently acerbic and often controversial.

They didn’t speak as they stowed their packs in the back of the crawler and climbed into the front. Pennington had recharged the primary energy cell and checked both backups while McNabb was still asleep. Grogan Station was the last human outpost they’d visit during this trip, unless you counted the abandoned camp at Teardrop, the dig site.

“At least we humans rise above our instincts from time to time. We’re not so firmly caught in the trap of biology. Instinct has to give way to reasoned analysis.”

A few seconds passed before Pennington realized that her companion was responding to her own previous remark. She suppressed a smile, delighted that she had managed to get under his skin. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that our particular trap is so subtle that we don’t realize we’re caught.”

McNabb made a noncommittal sound. “That’s a cheap argument, since by its very nature it’s irrefutable. I suppose you could say we’re trapped by our own mortality, by the physical limitations of our fleshy containers, but at least we’re trying to achieve more than simple self replication. Most of us will live twice as long as we would have a few centuries ago.”

“Moving to a larger cell doesn’t get us out of the prison.”

McNabb laughed humorlessly as Pennington started the crawler’s engines.

In many ways, Ochre was one of the most hospitable planets humankind had discovered. Its atmosphere was so close to optimal that breathing equipment was unnecessary except in a few mountainous regions. There were no dangerous predators, not even unpleasant bacteria, and the weather—though it varied considerably between equator and poles—avoided serious extremes. Even the deserts were tolerable for most of the year. But even though the water was safe to drink, there was no food native to Ochre which would nourish the human body. It might fill a person’s stomach without poisoning them, but they’d starve to death in the midst of apparent plenty. Efforts to introduce more useful flora and fauna had been intermittently successful but the ongoing support required to maintain an introduced ecosystem within the native biosphere was not economically viable. Had it not been for the widely scattered ruins of an extinct alien civilization, Ochre might have been abandoned entirely. There were other planets much more amenable to human colonization, or which contained rewards that justified extraordinary efforts.

Pennington was not a recluse but neither was she particularly garrulous. Most of the previous parties she had guided into Ochre’s desert had consisted of small groups of scientists who spoke mostly among themselves, treating her politely but firmly as hired help. There had been some casual flirting but nothing she couldn’t fend off amicably enough. Her craggy, windburned face discouraged most of her male clients and her height and obvious fitness discouraged the rest.

She had guided parties of scientists and explorers and even the occasional tourist and she never took offense when she was treated almost as though she were just another piece of equipment, excluded from planning sessions unless someone had a question she might be able to answer. As long as her fees were paid, snubs were of no consequence. McNabb had in fact surprised her by talking about his research persistently right from the outset, shouting much of the time because the crawler was an older model, its engine badly needed adjustment, and the rumbling vibration drowned out normal conversation. But McNabb was the first party of one she’d ever dealt with, and McNabb had no one else to belabor.

Pennington had been favorably impressed for the first half day, at which point she had realized that her part of the conversation was intended to be a succession of endorsements of McNabb’s opinions. The fact that she probably knew as much or more about the Ochran ruins than he was not a factor in their intercourse. Once she recognized that she was to be an echo rather than a sounding board, she slipped into that role easily. She’d worked with fools before. Their money was just as good as that of wiser men. If McNabb had noticed her change of attitude, he gave no sign.

It took a long time for the station to disappear behind them, not because they were moving slowly but because this part of the desert was unusually flat and featureless. There was actually quite a lot of vegetation, but most of it consisted of variegated water gatherers with broad leaves spread flat against the ground, the edges turned up to retain any condensation or precipitation that might gather there. Rain fell several times annually, but never hard enough to quench the thirsty soil. A plume of dust rose behind them as they moved across the wasteland, slowly settling in their wake as though annoyed at having been disturbed.

They normally ate while they traveled, but Pennington took advantage of a shady ravine to stop for their mid-day meal. Although McNabb was oblivious to any aspect of his environment that held no interest for him, she had a more practiced ear and knew the crawler’s engine needed attention. Sometimes the desert sand, which was unusually fine in this region, infiltrated the protective seals and lodged in places meant to be free of obstruction. A few minutes maintenance now was preferable to a comprehensive cleanup later, so she ate her rations quickly and used the powervac while McNabb investigated the partially fossilized skeleton of some prehistoric sea creature that protruded from the sand. Ochre had undergone dramatic changes during its lifetime and the ocean that had at one time covered this part of the planet was long since gone.

It was the hottest part of the day, but Pennington was barely sweating. She had lived on Ochre for most of her adult life. On the other hand, despite his state of the art outfit, McNabb’s skin was covered with a sheen of perspiration. He had complained about the heat constantly the first two days, and intermittently ever since.

“What is this thing?” McNabb asked, his foot tapping the lower end of a gently curved rib that arched up and over his head.

Pennington didn’t even glance in his direction. “It’s not likely anyone’s gotten around to naming it. Some kind of oversized fish. This used to be an ocean, you know.”

“Really?” It was not the first time McNabb had been openly sarcastic. “I never would have guessed.”

Pennington chose to pretend she hadn’t noticed his tone. “I’m about finished here.” She closed the engine compartment, tapped the containment icon. There was a whisper of compressed gas as the seals activated. “Ready to go?”

As flat as the desert had appeared, they had been climbing a very gradual rise for the past two hours and were now at its crest. Distant features to their rear disappeared quickly as they moved onward and new ones debuted ahead. Pennington knew the route intimately, but she still paused to take her bearings and make sure she was right where she thought she was. They were in no real danger, even if they got lost, since they could always radio for help, but it would be embarrassing as well as expensive, and her career as a guide would potentially be in serious jeopardy. She had a good reputation but the influx of new clients had slowed dramatically over the course of the last two years, and it was getting harder than ever to pay the bills. She owned her little homestead free and clear, but she had to buy food from the hydrofarms and fuel from the port authority. Both of these were on a cash only basis.

She had just adjusted their course westward when McNabb raised his voice to a low shout. “Do you really think a rational person would die to benefit someone else?”

Once again McNabb had reverted to a conversation Pennington had thought concluded, but this time she picked up the thread right away. “I thought someone in your profession would be familiar enough with human history to make that question unnecessary.”

“Oh, I don’t deny that there are numerous cases of self sacrifice. I question the motive. When a believer dies rather than deny his or her god or country or political persuasion, is that individual truly motivated by a wish to help others or is it just a kind of hubris? Martyrs all seem to have an excess of ego and usually a penchant for the theatrical. They’re playing up to an audience. If there was no one around to be impressed by their nobility, they’d change their principles in a minute.”

In that case, it seemed to Pennington, McNabb was a prime candidate for martyrdom. He didn’t seem to believe in anything except perhaps his own importance. The conversation held no interest for her. McNabb only listened to her opinions in order to refute them. It was a reflex, she suspected. “I don’t suppose we can ever know what goes through a person’s mind at that moment,” she said mildly, but McNabb wasn’t paying attention. Instead he’d wandered off on a fresh tangent of his own.

After a few minutes of welcome silence, he turned to look at her. “I suppose that if I found myself facing unavoidable death, I’d try to put a good face on it and claim that I was giving my all for some cause or another, but truthfully I’d rather live to fight another day, as would any reasonable person. Or live just for the sake of living. I certainly wouldn’t voluntarily give up my life, no matter how noble the justification. Once you’ve stepped off the boat, it really doesn’t matter to you if it sinks.”

“So there’s no situation in which you’d die to save someone else, or even to uphold a principle?”

This time McNabb chose to hear her, had perhaps hoped she’d provide the opening for a riposte he had already worked out in his mind. “Of course not. Tell me, Pennington, would you give your life for me?”

Pennington paused, as if considering the question from every point of view, though in fact she was trying to anticipate where she was being led. “No,” she said at last, drawing the syllable out. “Not for you.” She turned to face him as she spoke, her expression carefully neutral.

It was probably the answer he had expected because it seemed to support his position, but something in her delivery disquieted him. For the first time since they’d met, it was McNabb who seemed out of his depth. He laughed uncomfortably, shelved the rest of his prepared argument for another occasion, and turned away to look out across the rolling landscape. Pennington smiled to herself and felt better than she had all morning.


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